Tuesday, May 31, 2011

When Yamaoka was a brash student he visited the master Dokuon. Wanting to impress the master he said: 'There is no mind, there is no body, there is no Buddha. there is no better, there is no worse. there is no master, there is no student. there is no giving, there is no receiving. what we think we see and feel is not real. none of these seeming things really exists.'

Dokuon had been sitting quietly smoking his pipe, and saying nothing. suddenly he picked up his staff and gave Yamaoka a terrible whack. Yamaoka jumped up in anger. Dokuon said: 'since none of these things really exists, and all is emptiness, where does your anger come from? think about it.'

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

In the Hindu heaven, there is a tree called 'Kalptaru.' It means the wish-fulfilling tree. By accident a traveler arrived there and he was so tired that he sat under the tree. And he was hungry so he thought, 'If somebody was here, I would ask for food. But there seems to be nobody.' The moment the idea of food appeared in his mind, food suddenly appeared and he was so hungry that he didn't bother to think about it. He ate it.

Then he started feeling sleepy, and he thought, 'If there was a bed here....' And the bed appeared. But lying on the bed the thought arose in him, 'What is happening? I don't see anybody here. Food has come, a bed has come -- maybe there are ghosts doing Things to me!' Suddenly ghosts appeared.. Then he became afraid and he thought, 'Now they will kill me!' And they killed him!

In life the law is the same: if you think of ghosts, they are bound to appear. Think and you will see. If you think of enemies, you will create them; if you think of friends, they will appear. If you love, love appears all around you; if you hate, hate appears. Whatsoever you go on thinking is being fulfilled by a certain law.

Monday, May 16, 2011

It was after the last war and a journalist was interviewing the Reverend Mother of a convent in Europe. 'Tell me,' said the journalist, 'what happened to you and your nuns during those terrible years? How did you survive?'

'Well, first of all,' said the Reverend Mother, 'the Germans invaded our country, seized the convent, raped all the nuns -- except sister Anastasia -- took our food and left. Then came the Russians. Again they seized the convent, raped all the nuns -- except Sister Anastasia -- took our food and left. Then again the Russians were driven out and the Germans came back again, seized the convent, raped all the nuns --except Sister Anastasia -- took our food and left.' The journalist made the required sympathetic noises, but was curious about Sister Anastasia. 'Who is this Sister Anastasia?' he asked. 'Why did she escape these terrible happenings?' 'Ah, well,' replied the Reverend Mother, 'Sister Anastasia does not like that kind of thing.'

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

“There are two ways of constructing a software design:One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficienciesand the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.” - Tony Hoare, 1991 Turing Award Lecture.

"A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

“Ingenuity is often misunderstood. It is not a matter of superior intelligence but of character. It demands more than anything a willingness to recognize failure, to not paper over the cracks, and to change. It arises from deliberate, even obsessive, reflection on failure and a constant searching for new solutions.” - Atul Gawande, Better

“Software is not a product, it’s a medium for storing knowledge. Therefore, software development is not a product producing activity, it is a knowledge acquiring activity. Knowledge is just the other side of the coin of ignorance, therefore software development is an ignorance-reduction activity.” - Phillip Armour

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – Hamlet

“Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo“ - (Be tough in your aims, but smooth in the way you put them into practice).

"Living a life of defeat is death and a death with dignity is life."

“For every step you take toward mastery, your destination moves two steps further away. Embrace mastery as a lifelong endeavor. Learn to love the journey.” - George Leonard, Mastery

"Seduced by the siren song of a consumerist, quick-fix society, we sometimes choose a course of action that brings only the illusion of accomplishment, the shadow of satisfaction" - George Leonard, Mastery